As reported by the Berkshire Eagle, Front Yard LLC recently submitted its application for a Special Permit to the Lenox Zoning Board of Appeals. The Lenox Zoning Bylaw identifies conditions for approval that are strikingly similar to the Stockbridge criteria, though they were largely ignored or trivialized by the Stockbridge Selectmen.

Those six specific areas of concern are highlighted below, in bold. We trust that the Lenox ZBA, with input from the Planning Board, and from truly independent consultants, will carefully consider the long list of questions that went unanswered in Stockbridge.

1. Community needs served by the proposal.

Has the applicant persuasively demonstrated the need for yet another spa resort in our community? What market analysis and demographic projections have they submitted to substantiate the need for this resort? What is their business model, and how does it compare to other large resorts such as the recently permitted Spring Lawn development? What impact will this massive development have on our B & Bs and existing inns and resorts?

As for claims of new jobs: have they submitted detailed information as to the wage and salary structure of their proposed staff? Will these wages and salaries permit employees to actually live in Lenox, with their children attending Lenox schools?

Does this proposal meet the statewide criteria for “Smart Growth”? The answer to that would be an obvious “NO”, in stark contrast to the Spring Lawn development, which does in fact meet most of those criteria. Numerous young (21 and under) Berkshire residents stated during the Stockbridge “hearing” that their vision of the future Berkshire economy centers on local food production, small creative businesses and sustainable enterprises, NOT on franchise-style resorts such as the proposed big-box annex at Elm Court. Such testimony fell on deaf ears. While many will pay lip service to the “needs of Berkshire young people”, very few ever listen to what they have to say.

We urge everyone within the process to keep in mind that the parent company Amstar is not in the resort or hospitality business; they make their money on the exit from properties. There is no guarantee that the “Travaasa” brand will be around in five years from now, let alone a generation or two. What happens when they flip the property to Hilton, who then flips to Holiday Inn, and onwards down the food chain?

2. Traffic flow and safety, including parking and loading.

The materials submitted by the applicant are restricted to idiotic “level of service” traffic studies, using a methodology that is truly in the dark ages of pseudo-science. Our position from the start has been that this methodology may be fine for evaluating whether to put another Dunkin’ Donuts in downtown Pittsfield, but is wholly irrelevant to evaluating the impact of dropping a 112 room mega-resort into an historic, residential neighborhood. Our concerns center around safety, having to do with the road topography and alignment characteristics, as well as with speeding and other driving behaviors that suggest that adding a major new category of traffic will end in tragedy.

Beyond those “big picture” concerns: how will staff be trained to arrive and depart work? How will large commercial service vehicles be routed, to mitigate safety and noise concerns in the neighborhood? How will guests be directed to arrive to the resort?

Much has been written about the idea of a sidewalk; it should be clear that while there are some neighborhood residents who favor a sidewalk, there are many others who believe that such an “amenity” will further destroy the character of our neighborhood. Surely, such a major project can only be pursued on the basis of solid consensus. At present, there is no such consensus – far from it!

3. Adequacy of utilities and other public services.

We are aware that there is adequate capacity at present to serve the water and waste needs of the proposed development. However, large projects inevitably carry unforeseen consequences, and thus it is prudent to make sure that the town is protected should the sewage hit the proverbial fan in the future. To build new town infrastructure just because because a single corporate land owner promises to pay for it (short term) represents a terrible way to conduct local planning. It’s the sort of impulsive money-grabbing that invariably creates major headaches down the road.

4. Neighborhood character and social structures.

The most respected neighborhood character expert in New England expressed dismay that such a massive project would ever be considered in a low-key, family oriented neighborhood such as Old Stockbridge Road. His detailed report is available here, and summarized here. For a general description of existing neighborhood character from the point of view of those who live here, see this post.

There is a persistent rumor that the applicant intends to market the Elm Court facility as a regional Wedding Mill, with multiple weddings scheduled every day of the wedding season. Such intensive use (particularly on weekends) would have massive impacts on the ability of residents to enjoy their properties in peace and quiet, as well as raising serious safety concerns of alcohol use and driving on our hilly, winding road. Reasonable limits must be placed on the hosting of weddings and other such events, e.g. one per weekend.

Similarly, the restaurant should not be open to the public; does the town of Lenox truly suffer from a dearth of restaurant options? We think not.

5. Impacts on the natural environment.

Much has been said about how this proposal protects “open space”; yet there is presently no guarantee that this is not merely Phase A of a far more intensive development yet to come in Phase B and Phase C, via townhouses, condos, mansion “units” and other amenities such as tennis courts, stables, etc. Will the applicant agree to placing a Conservation Restriction on the rest of the property, held by the Lenox Land Trust, or by the Berkshire Natural Resources Council?

6. Potential economic and fiscal impact to the Town, including impact on town services, tax base, and employment.

We do not know what the impact will be; and in the absence of a professional, independent study and analysis based on hard data from the hospitality industry, neither does anybody else. It is easy to say that “all development is positive”, but what happens if, over the long term, as this resort slides down the hospitality industry food chain, the value of adjacent properties (most of which are in Lenox) depreciates by 30%, or even 50%? What happens to the tax base then? Or: what happens if this resort is the final blow to our B & Bs, most of which are already struggling to sustain themselves? Lenox could well end up with a net fiscal loss to the Town, a loss that will make any short-term fee revenues appear like fool’s gold.

We urge that Town Manager Chris Ketchen, Town Planner Gwen Miller and members of both the Planning Board and ZBA walk (not just drive) down Old Stockbridge Road, and get a sense for the neighborhood and the character of the road, from ground level. We extended this same invitation to the Stockbridge Selectmen, though it seems they were only willing to attend tea & champagne parties at Elm Court.

There is no definition of the neighborhood in the submitted material. Concerning the physical characteristics, it is a long settled and established neighborhood, marked by the gentle curves and slopes of a narrow scenic road, without the need of sidewalks. It is a place of multigenerational families, committed to place and community, who enjoy the seasons and the natural environment. Their homes can be characterized by steady reinvestment with a significant number relying on their own water and sewer systems. I would ask the applicant to compare these traits with their proposal to determine the degree of compatibility between the neighborhood and the project. It would appear that they are not.

Dr. Mullin then includes an excellent chart that compares the values and qualities of the neighborhood to the values and qualities of the proposed resort. This chart clearly demonstrates that dropping a corporate mega-resort into an established residential neighborhood is a very bad fit.

Did the Stockbridge board of Selectmen consider these excellent points? Of course not, since their minds had already been made up, many months before. They smelled money, and figured there was no downside to a project where the revenues would accrue to Stockbridge at the expense of a neighborhood that was located for the most part in Lenox. People in the neighborhood were belittled, bullied and ignored.

So will the various Lenox boards pay closer attention to the expertise and analysis of Dr. Mullin? We hope so, but it seems that many towns don’t care anymore about neighborhoods or families: corporations, and their interests, rule the roost. Unfortunately for our towns, such a large and ill-considered scheme is likely to carry very substantial unintended consequences, and the smell of money may quickly turn into a far less welcome stench.

We urge Lenox board members to exercise maximum due diligence and to pay close attention to every aspect of this project, above all, input from the people who actually live here.

Sometimes, the deeper meaning of a long story finds expression in a single document. So it is with recent minutes of the Stockbridge Board of Selectmen, that offer readers a sad chronicle of naive boosterism and derogation of due process. Here is a snippet from those minutes early in the process of “reviewing” (read: shamelessly promoting) the Amstar proposal for Elm Court:

Chuck is Selectman Charles Gillette; Chris is Chris Manning, one of the former presidents of the revolving door real estate operation that carries the pseudo-Sanskrit brand name “Travaasa”. The snippet speaks for itself, but here’s the neighborhood response to Mr. Gillette, Mr. Manning and to Travaasa president-du-jour Adam Hawthorn: that “little elderly lady” has a name, and a life, and a residency on Old Stockbridge Road that spans five decades. She deserves to be treated with respect, not dismissed as powerless, and thus considered irrelevant. Rather than caution Mr. Manning for his arrogant statement, Mr. Gillette merely wonders if the fact that “she is in Lenox” may become a problem. So much for the ideals of public service!

The Stockbridge minutes are full of telling vignettes such as this one; we recommend them to all Stockbridge voters. Is this who you are, the sort of town you wish to be? Do such “leaders” truly represent the best and brightest of Stockbridge and the Berkshires?

On the evening of September 8, in a decision likely to go down in Stockbridge history as the worst ever, and one that may haunt the town mightily in years to come, the three sitting members of the town Board of Selectmen (BOS), acting as the Special Permit Granting Authority (SPGA), gave permission to Front Yard LLC to proceed with their plans to drop a huge commercial resort into the middle of an existing residential neighborhood. For fee payments and tax income that may well turn out to be illusory, the BOS thereby sold out the longstanding residents of Old Stockbridge Road, some of whom have been there for decades, and many of whom actually bought their lots from previous owners of Elm Court.

One young citizen who attended the meeting told us that he was so disturbed by what he had witnessed that he was questioning whether he wanted to continue to live in the Berkshires. Others told us they thought the entire process had been a sham. Though equally shocked by the refusal of the SPGA to carefully weigh and consider relevant factual evidence, all of the evidence, through rational deliberations, we were not at all surprised by what transpired over the course of the hearing. We had facts that strongly suggested that the decision to approve had already been made, way back in 2012. But don’t take our word for it; here are their own minutes.

FACT I

For the BOS meeting of June 13, 2012, we find the following, with red highlighting added for emphasis; the “Chris” mentioned is Chris Manning, the now-departed former President of Travaasa: Mr. Shatz knew that he would eventually preside over the hearing for a special permit as the Chair of the SPGA, yet there he was back in 2012 actively coaching the applicant as to how they could slide a bylaw amendment designed to facilitate the approval of this one property through an unpredictable Special Town Meeting on zoning issues that was eventually scheduled for February 19, 2013. Even though that meeting was subsequently presented with an incomplete and inaccurate description of the project, and even with all that preparation and help from the Selectmen, the amendment still did not pass. What to do?

Owner Bob Berle and his attorney, David Hellman, who would subsequently become the attorney for Front Yard LLC, then went away and did what they were told: they crafted a freshly worded amendment, tailor made for Elm Court.

At the regular 2013 Town Meeting to follow, the BOS gave a ringing endorsement to this amendment, written by the owner’s attorney in consultation with the BOS; Amstar once again presented a partial and significantly smaller version of their plan; a few emotional pleas were made to “save Elm Court”; and the amendment finally passed.

Then came the time for those same three members of the BOS – Mr. Gillette, Ms. McMenamy and Mr. Shatz – to put on their hats as the SPGA, a role in which they are supposed to have open minds throughout an objective and impartial process. Not easy for them to do, having been such eager and supportive Berle/Amstar cheerleaders for the previous two years!

Mr. Gillette, for example, thought that the Town Meeting vote on a bylaw amendment was an indication of unambiguous support for the project, and that his thinking cap could thus be placed on a high shelf somewhere; at least, such was the crux of his statement following the decision on Monday night. As for the Chairman Mr. Shatz, despite strong and relevant new information and analysis entered into the record, he was so convinced of the gratuitous irrelevance of his own SPGA hearing that he had already written up his findings before the evening had even begun!

We leave it up to each reader to reach their own conclusion regarding the ethics of all this, but we can comfortably assert that such behavior is highly irregular for an SPGA, and should raise serious questions, for all concerned residents of Stockbridge.

Do you want the same people who serve as boosters and political consultants for commercial developers to then preside over the permitting process? Is this good for the town and in the public interest, over the long term? Should not the members of the Stockbridge BOS, deeply involved in enabling this project through the bylaw amendment, have recused themselves as the SPGA, and deferred to their Zoning Board of Appeals? Again, we leave each reader to reach their own conclusion.

We close with Article XXIX of the Constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that expresses a noble, fundamental principle for the rule of law reaching all the way back to Magna Carta:

FACT 4

To all those who witnessed this process, and to all those who have duly examined the above three excerpts from the Stockbridge BOS minutes: do you believe this properly high ethical standard has been met?

Many people still do not comprehend the size of the hotel “annex” under consideration. Here is a 96-room Courtyard by Marriott located not far away, in the Hadley/Amherst area:

96 ROOM COURTYARD BY MARRIOTT

And here is the proposed “annex”:

ELM COURT ANNEX HOTEL AS PROPOSED: THIS IS A VERY BIG CHUNKY HOTEL

Amstar is also proposing a 104 space parking lot, as their main “valet service” parking. The photo below shows 80 spaces — so add another row for good measure.

Finally, the proposed “spa” (who knows what it will really be used for) is another 15,500 square feet. Here is what that looks like, in the form of the “Sugar Land” Ballroom, located inside a Texas Marriott, famous as a wedding mill.

Every aspect of the proposed resort is way too big. All historical value on the grounds and in the neighborhood will be crushed by this monstrous new “facility”. Those who claim that this is the only way to “save Elm Court” remind us of how Tacitus described the Roman legions: They make a desert and call it peace.

Supporters of the big-box franchise-style hotel “annex” plus the public spa and large restaurant now being proposed for Elm Court continue to play the emotional card: either build this massive resort or Elm Court will collapse into ruin.

To be blunt, this argument is total nonsense. There are many alternative uses; and there is certainly a far better process for building consensus and conceiving a sustainable future use for the property, one that does not create economic viability by destroying the existing neighborhood.

For example:

The Board of Selectmen could establish a committee of neighbors, concerned citizens and planning officials from both Stockbridge and Lenox to research alternatives. Just to get the ball rolling, here are a few ideas.

1. A smaller spa hotel with 32 rooms, 16 of which would be located in a wing similar in architectural style to the present “Billiard” wing, or put additional guest rooms in one of the houses on the southern end of the property (the Gardener’s Cottage, the Butler’s Cottage, the Stables, etc.).

2. Finish restoration of the mansion; involve Trustees of Reservations in running Elm Court as an historic hotel similar to but larger than the lovely restored mansion, The Inn at Castle Hill, on the Crane Estate run by the Trustees of Reservations. All rooms and facilities within the existing footprint. True restoration!

3. A development similar to Bishop Estate, which has 19 houses with most land held in common, as part of restored Beartix Ferrand landscape plan.

4. A development similar to Winden Hill, which has 28 units, in roughly 12 buildings on 60 acres.

5. Try again in this time of economic recovery to sell to an individual who would restore the building for personal use or for use as a luxury boutique Hotel.

6. Attract a small organization (think tank, academic research center, graduate program in 19th century American studies, etc.) to make Elm Court its headquarters, similar to the American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington.

7. Restore Elm Court to its original, smaller size and make it the Club House/Event Space for an association of architecturally harmonious houses on estate grounds.

These various approaches are only a start. Surely, a committee charged with exploring these and other concepts could develop a solid list of ideas worth exploring in more detail, with input from planning professionals. Rushing a project of this scale virtually guarantees massive unintended consequences. Let’s slow down, begin again and do it right!